Even if you haven’t read McCarthy’s stuff, you’ve surely run across his imitators. His prose has a sort of Hemingway-by-way-of-Stephen-King texture to it, which can either be an inspiration or spoofworthy, however you care to take it. Here’s the real stuff, from The Road:

He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.

Mr. McCarthy might be surprised to find that people have excelled at being him on Twitter for a long time. If he is uncertain about how this will go, he should look to his imitators.

Here’s one such faker:

Humanking birthed and rose near oceans and rivers and lakes. Rich valleys and forests. I see its end in the hills. And earth-bowel caves.